Gas sales trigger green fears

The environmental lobby group WWF says the announcement of multi-billion dollar gas sales from new north-west gas projects have deepened its concerns about the future of marine environments in the region.

Chevron has signed a $90 billion deal with a Japanese customer which will result in 4.1 million tonnes of gas being exported each year from the Wheatstone project near Onslow.

WWF's Paul Gamblin says it is one of many proposed LNG projects in the Pilbara and Kimberley which ignore potential environmental impacts.

"We're starting to tell a very sad story for the environment and what we're not seeing is [the] Government paying nearly as much attention to protecting this natural heritage as they are in boasting about the economic dividends from these projects," he said.

"It's okay to be excited about that as far as we're concerned, as long as you're actually protecting the environment and in this case we're not really seeing too much of the latter."